Another contributing factor is that this happened on the weekend. And who works on Saturday - the most junior lowest seniority folks at the airline, the FAA, and the airport. In some cases these are the new hires least equipped to deal with a problem they haven't seen before. And depending on the organization, it is not that easy to reach the big dog - especially on Saturday.
The Captain should have been able to reach Barger direct. I suspect that the B6 dispatch and operations center became quickly overloaded and were focused on getting planes on the ground while they still had fuel. And they probably had minimum weekend staffing populated by the newest and most junior dispatchers and supervisors.
Some years ago when the AA MD-80 sat on the ground for 14 or so hours after a divert to Austin, no one stepped up to the plate. It was easier to let everyone sit on the airplane. And wx was not even a problem.